Robert Macfarlane: Underland (Paperback, 2020, Penguin Books, Limited)
Paperback, 488 pages
English language
Published Nov. 10, 2020 by Penguin Books, Limited.
From the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old Ways
'Dazzling' Guardian
'Heart-stopping' Daily Telegraph
'Mesmerizing' Observer
'Epic' Financial Times
'You'd be crazy not to read this book' The Sunday Times
Underland is an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory and the land itself. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.
'Marvellous... Neverending curiosity, generosity of spirit, erudition, bravery and clarity... This is a book well worth reading' The Times
'Extraordinary... at once learned and readable, thrilling and beautifully written' Observer
'Attentive, thoughtful, finely honed... I turned the last page with the unusual conviction of having been in the company of a fine writer who is - who must surely be - a good man' Telegraph
'Poetry, science, a healthy sense of the uncanny and a touch …
From the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old Ways
'Dazzling' Guardian
'Heart-stopping' Daily Telegraph
'Mesmerizing' Observer
'Epic' Financial Times
'You'd be crazy not to read this book' The Sunday Times
Underland is an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory and the land itself. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.
'Marvellous... Neverending curiosity, generosity of spirit, erudition, bravery and clarity... This is a book well worth reading' The Times
'Extraordinary... at once learned and readable, thrilling and beautifully written' Observer
'Attentive, thoughtful, finely honed... I turned the last page with the unusual conviction of having been in the company of a fine writer who is - who must surely be - a good man' Telegraph
'Poetry, science, a healthy sense of the uncanny and a touch of the shamanic are the hallmarks of his writing... This is a journey that tells the story not just of nature but of human nature. And there is noone I would more gladly follow on it' i
'Startling and memorable, charting invisible and vanishing worlds. Macfarlane has made himself Orpheus, the poet who ventures down to the darkest depths and returns - frighteningly alone-to sing of what he has seen' New Statesman
I am immensely envious that the author got to visit all these magnificent places and meet such remarkable people while doing so. I am also immensely grateful that the author captures it all so powerfully and poetically that I feel almost as if I was there, too.
Have you ever been reading a book and after being interrupted by something for a minute gone back, resumed reading, and after about ten seconds realized that you had just read the paragraph you're reading? You feel like an idiot because you were paying attention to what you were reading before the interruption but now you're seeing words, phrases, even entire sentences that you didn't notice before. It makes you wonder how much you get out of any book you read.
[a:Robert Macfarlane|435856|Robert Macfarlane|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1369335601p2/435856.jpg]'s [b:Underland: A Deep Time Journey|53121631|Underland A Deep Time Journey|Robert Macfarlane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1597184024l/53121631.SY75.jpg|68561061] was like that for me more than any book I've read in months, maybe a few years. That's praise, as much as it troubles me.
His prose is profound, literary and dense for a nonfiction work in the way [a:Helen Macdonald|314021|Helen Macdonald|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1400594607p2/314021.jpg]'s [b:H is for Hawk|18803640|H is for Hawk|Helen Macdonald|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1661766699l/18803640.SY75.jpg|26732095] is. You …
Have you ever been reading a book and after being interrupted by something for a minute gone back, resumed reading, and after about ten seconds realized that you had just read the paragraph you're reading? You feel like an idiot because you were paying attention to what you were reading before the interruption but now you're seeing words, phrases, even entire sentences that you didn't notice before. It makes you wonder how much you get out of any book you read.
[a:Robert Macfarlane|435856|Robert Macfarlane|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1369335601p2/435856.jpg]'s [b:Underland: A Deep Time Journey|53121631|Underland A Deep Time Journey|Robert Macfarlane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1597184024l/53121631.SY75.jpg|68561061] was like that for me more than any book I've read in months, maybe a few years. That's praise, as much as it troubles me.
His prose is profound, literary and dense for a nonfiction work in the way [a:Helen Macdonald|314021|Helen Macdonald|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1400594607p2/314021.jpg]'s [b:H is for Hawk|18803640|H is for Hawk|Helen Macdonald|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1661766699l/18803640.SY75.jpg|26732095] is. You can read some books written with high literary aspects and get much out of them, but I think it would be hard to do with this one. The language and the narrative are so well intertwined.
You'll want a dictionary when reading this, and even my decent ones didn't have definitions for some of the words Macfarlane uses, and others are British variants. A few of the words I didn't know: ammonite, swallet, kists, skyring, baize, halight, coppice, sinter, curtilage. Of those nine, just one, baize, was flagged as a misspelling as I keyed them in here. I would have liked it if he'd included a few simple maps to show where he traveled to but like most Americans I am deficient in my knowledge of geography.
As the titles suggest, Underland would be an ideal companion to [a:Richard Powers|11783|Richard Powers|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1263155076p2/11783.jpg]'s [b:The Overstory|40180098|The Overstory|Richard Powers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562786502l/40180098.SY75.jpg|57662223], even though that's fiction.
An excerpt:
The Piave is heavy with silt from the mountains, moving with a pewter simmer, more stone than water to the eye. A sense of high peaks out of sight to the north, there in the darkening of the sky. Maize fields. Wild acacia groves in the lost ground under flyovers. Pale doves lifting in flocks off turned brown earth. Abandoned factories with pantile roofs, buddleia filling the window frames. Farmhouses lost in ivy. Everything wearing the heat like a cloak.
An epic odyssey into the underland. I especially enjoyed the Paris Catacombs, the ancient cave art, and about how to bury and protect radioactive waste for tens of thousands of years. This Macfarlane is a good writer, almost TOO good. Enjoyed it!
I took over a year to read this book because it was too delicious to consume fully. Reading, then putting it down and staring into the middle-distance as the ideas percolate and steep inside me.
I’m sad it’s over.
There are a lot of interesting facts included in the book and I learned a little about a lot. It's a nice book for opening doors to new interests.
3.5 leaning heavily towards 4 stars. Sadly didn't get it all the way.
Good interesting subject for a story for sure. Roots of trees talking, mining, caving, rock climbing. Just needed diving and cycling for a full deck ;) Science, hiding waste from the future, folklore, myth. All subjects that kept me reading, as I enjoy learning about this.
The question "are we good ancestors?" Go me thinking about how we are now and what we are leaving behind.
But some of the side notes and anecdotal, where at time a bit eh, why? Along with the a bit over the top flowerly writing. And a couple of times I was thinking have I pressed the back button and skipped back to a chapter I had already read, as he repeated some bits.
Though that said I did really enjoy reading about the Paris Catacombs, as I have walked and …
3.5 leaning heavily towards 4 stars. Sadly didn't get it all the way.
Good interesting subject for a story for sure. Roots of trees talking, mining, caving, rock climbing. Just needed diving and cycling for a full deck ;) Science, hiding waste from the future, folklore, myth. All subjects that kept me reading, as I enjoy learning about this.
The question "are we good ancestors?" Go me thinking about how we are now and what we are leaving behind.
But some of the side notes and anecdotal, where at time a bit eh, why? Along with the a bit over the top flowerly writing. And a couple of times I was thinking have I pressed the back button and skipped back to a chapter I had already read, as he repeated some bits.
Though that said I did really enjoy reading about the Paris Catacombs, as I have walked and crawled these tunnels before a few times.. Though I do remember the mud and water than Robert, he clearly forgot ;)
